Want to Share Rogers 6GB Data Plan? It’ll Cost You $30 Extra

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Want to Share Rogers 6GB Data Plan? It’ll Cost You $30 Extra

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Today, Rogers launched a new data sharing option for customers that have the 6GB data plan. It will cost $30 extra per month, per device to share your existing 6GB/$30 data plan with up to five devices. But first, some history.

July 2010

With the launch of the iPhone 4, Rogers released their famous 6GB data plan. Along with the 6GB data plan, Rogers also launched a data sharing option that allowed iPhone owners on the 6GB data plan to share their data with an iPad. This service cost an extra $20 + GRRF per month and the promotion expired in September 2010.

It was unreasonable to pay extra to share data you had already paid for. This has resulted in the popularity of jailbroken apps such as MyWi.

Fast Forward To November 2010

As Rogers entered Holiday 2010, the company launched three new Data Shareable Voice & Data Plans and three new standalone data sharing options. To share these data plans with an iPad, for example, it cost an extra $15 + GRRF per month (now $10 until May 2, 2011). Some would say this is robbery.

If you have the 6GB data plan from Rogers and want to share that plan with an iPad, for example, you must pay an extra $30 + GRRF per month, per device(for up to five devices) on top of your already $30 + GRRF 6GB data plan! And don’t forget the $35 one-time activation fee per device.

Let’s break this down with an example:

Billy owns an iPhone 4 with a 6GB data plan. He pays $25 for a voice plan and $30 for his 6GB data plan for a total of $55 + GRRF + Tax.

Billy can share his 6GB data plan with his iPad, but he has to pay $30 more per month for a total of $85 + GRRF + Tax.

Is Rogers preparing to charge for the use of Personal Hotspot?

Pay For Personal Hotspot?

In January, we were chatting with Rogers via Twitter about bringing Apple’s new iOS 4.3 Personal Hotspot to Canadians.

While the feature will come, whether Rogers likes it or not, the control that Rogers has is choosing whether or not to charge us. We have yet to get a clear answer about being charged.

If these data share plans are any indication of what’s to come, expect to pay $10 – $30 per month extra–to share your data plan with Personal Hotspot.

Will that happen? We don’t know–but the infrastructure is there to charge us extra fees.